Film Categories: Asian

  • Late Afternoon

    Late afternoon light is usually viewed as “the magic light,” the most beautiful light of the day. But it is too short for people to really enjoy it. So is the love between human beings. The love story of two women in this video represents love in general. Although love is momentary, it is unforgettable – which is the whole meaning of the life we are living.

  • Leftovers

    In “Leftovers”, Janine Fung’s wild narration about misunderstandings in her traditional Chinese family plays over images of her mother carving turkey. Also available on QUEERS ON THE VERGE.

  • Mashiko Village Pottery, Japan 1937

    Produced by a pre-war cultural organization in Japan, the film is a work of great clarity and beauty which follows an entire pottery-making cycle as performed in Japan for centuries. Mashiko ceramic manufacture is said to date back to 1853. Also shown at work is the great painter of teapots, Masu Minagawa, an itinerant, illiterate painter of patterns who travelled amongst the kilns in villages. It is said that she decorated up to one thousand teapots per day. Some of her very rare drawings on paper are now held at the Fogg Art Museum in Massachusetts. The film was restored…

  • Me, Mom and Mona

    The women of the Shum family are a force to be reckoned with. Sitting around joking about how they pull the wool over Dad’s eyes, or remembering all the absurdities of growing up Chinese in Vancouver, it’s clear they’ve hit on a strategy that can handle both Chinese tradition and Canadian custom – humour. The laughter resonates throughout “Me, Mom and Mona” to touch off much deeper responses.

  • Arnold

    This is a comedy about a boy who sweeps floors in a Chi-Com drug store and who one day meets a girl. What happens after that is humorously absurd.

  • Naosaki

    An aesthetic study of gymnastic movement, emphasizing its visual and lyrical elements, and creating the “feeling” of movement through the use of slow motion, repetition of movement, dissolves, etc. The movement proceeds sequentially through preparation, strength movements, airborne movements and so on to resolution.

  • New Shoes: An Interview in Exactly 5 Minutes

    “New Shoes” is an interview in exactly five minutes, which gives a candid portrait of a male-female relationship that terminated with dire consequences. Symbolic imagery of a fairy princess intercut with the interview and a temporal distance from the experience itself bring a quick sense of irony to the event. Originally produced as a segment of “Five Feminist Minutes.”

  • Panama, The

    “The Panama” chronicles the Chan family of Victoria, B.C. as it evolved from its first days in Canada when the patriarch Chan Dun, at the age of twelve, landed in Victoria in 1890. From this auspicious occasion, a family of eight sons and four daughters would eventually center around the Panama café, a western-style eatery specializing in liver and onions and apple pie to the working class of the city. Located on Government Street by 1930, The Panama café is a story of one of the oldest Chinese Canadian families. It describes its experience during the depression, the war years…

  • Performance by Jack Smith, A

    In October of 1984, the highly acclaimed New York artist, Jack Smith, came to Toronto for a week long performance/Halloween ritual at the Funnel Experimental Film Theatre. This performance, true to Smithesque form, went by three different titles: “Dance of the Sacred Foundation Application,” “Brassieres of Uranus,” and “Impacted Croissants From Outer Space.” Accompanied by the music of Yma Sumac, this short piece remains the last film documentation of this historic event.

  • Pioneers of X-Ray Technology

    “In Ann Marie Fleming’s ‘Pioneers of X-Ray Technology’ (a film about Grandpa), super-8 home movies are only one part of the film’s cooly complex structure. The first time I saw ‘Pioneers’ it looked like an uncomplicated portrait of Fleming’s grandfather, Dr. Ernest To, who was a photographer, amateur filmmaker and Hong Kong radiologist. On second viewing, the film’s ambivalence towards its subject becomes clear. “Fleming (‘You Take Care Now,’ ‘New Shoes’) is known for the ‘quirkiness’ of her films, but she’s above all a brilliant editor, both cinematographically and conceptually. Like nearly all her films, ‘Pioneers’ benefits from remarkable compression.…